Editing Orpheus in the Underworld (section)

== Reception ==
===19th century===
[[File:Cocher conduisez-nou.jpg|thumb|alt=cartoon of smart man and woman getting into a horse-drawn cab and addressing the driver|[[Christoph Willibald Gluck|Gluck]]'s and Offenbach's ''Orphées'' compared:{{pb}}"Take us to the theatre where they're doing ''Orpheus''."{{pb}}"The ''Orpheus'' that's boring or the ''Orpheus'' that's funny?"<ref>''Quoted'' in notes to EMI LP set SLS 5175</ref>]]

From the outset {{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}} divided critical opinion. Janin's furious condemnation did the work much more good than harm,<ref name=g54/> and was in contrast with the laudatory review of the premiere by [[Jules Noriac]] in the {{lang|fr|Figaro-Programme}}, which called the work, "unprecedented, splendid, outrageous, gracious, delightful, witty, amusing, successful, perfect, tuneful".<ref>''Quoted'' in Faris, pp. 69–70</ref>{{refn|"Inouï, Splendide, Ébouriffant, Gracieux, Charmant, Spirituel, Amusant, Réussi, Parfait, Mélodieux." Noriac printed each word on a new line for emphasis.<ref>Faris, pp. 69–70</ref>|group=n}} Bertrand Jouvin, in {{lang|fr|Le Figaro}}, criticised some of the cast but praised the staging – "a fantasy show, which has all the variety, all the surprises of fairy-opera".<ref name=y212>Yon, p. 212</ref> The {{lang|fr|[[Revue et gazette musicale de Paris]]}} thought that though it would be wrong to expect too much in a piece of this genre, {{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}} was one of Offenbach's most outstanding works, with charming couplets for Eurydice, Aristée-Pluton and the King of Boeotia.<ref name=rgm>Smith, p. 350</ref> {{lang|fr|[[Le Ménestrel]]}} called the cast "thoroughbreds" who did full justice to "all the charming jokes, all the delicious originalities, all the farcical oddities thrown in profusion into Offenbach's music".<ref name=y213>Yon, pp. 212–213</ref>

Writing of the 1874 revised version, the authors of {{lang|fr|[[Les Annales du Théâtre et de la Musique|Les Annales du théâtre et de la musique]]}} said, "{{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}} is above all a good show. The music of Offenbach has retained its youth and spirit. The amusing operetta of yore has become a splendid extravaganza",<ref name=n291>Noël and Stoullig (1888), p. 291</ref> against which Félix Clément and Pierre Larousse wrote in their {{lang|fr|Dictionnaire des Opéras}} (1881) that the piece is "a coarse and grotesque parody" full of "vulgar and indecent scenes" that "give off an unhealthy smell".<ref name=candl>Clément and Larousse, pp. 503–504</ref>

The opera was widely seen as containing thinly disguised satire of the régime of [[Napoleon III]],<ref name=g54/><ref>Munteanu Dana. [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/507717 "Parody of Greco-Roman Myth in Offenbach's ''Orfée aux enfers'' and ''La belle Hélène''"], ''Syllecta Classica'' 23 (2013), pp. 81 and 83–84 {{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190512094552/https://muse.jhu.edu/article/507717 |date=2019-05-12 }}</ref> but the early press criticisms of the work focused on its mockery of revered classical authors such as [[Ovid]]{{refn|One of Offenbach's biographers, [[Siegfried Kracauer]], suggests that critics like Janin shied away from confronting the political satire, preferring to accuse Offenbach of disrespect of the classics.<ref>Kracauer, p. 177</ref>|group=n}} and the equally sacrosanct music of Gluck's {{lang|it|Orfeo}}.<ref>Gammond, p. 51</ref>{{refn|Gluck was not the only composer whom Offenbach parodied in {{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}}: [[Daniel Auber|Auber's]] venerated opera {{lang|fr|[[La muette de Portici]]}} is also quoted in the scene where the gods rebel against Jupiter,<ref>Senelick, p. 40</ref> as is {{lang|fr|[[La Marseillaise]]}} – a risky venture on the composer's part as the song was banned under the Second Empire as a {{lang|fr|"chant séditieux"}}.<ref name=musico>Schipperges, Thomas. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/24621009 "Jacques Offenbach's Galop infernal from Orphée aux enfers. A Musical Analysis"], ''International Journal of Musicology'', Vol. 8 (1999), pp. 199–214 (abstract in English to article in German) {{subscription required}}</ref> |group=n}}  Faris comments that the satire perpetrated by Offenbach and his librettists was cheeky rather than hard-hitting,<ref>Faris, p. 176</ref> and [[Richard Taruskin]] in his study of 19th-century music observes, "The calculated licentiousness and feigned sacrilege, which successfully baited the stuffier critics, were recognized by all for what they were – a social palliative, the very opposite of social criticism{{nbsp}}[...] The spectacle of the Olympian gods doing the cancan threatened nobody's dignity."<ref>Taruskin, p. 646</ref> The Emperor greatly enjoyed {{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}} when he saw it at a command performance in 1860; he told Offenbach he would "never forget that dazzling evening".<ref name=f77>Faris, p. 77</ref>

===20th and 21st centuries===
After Offenbach's death his reputation in France suffered a temporary eclipse. In Faris's words, his comic operas were "dismissed as irrelevant and meretricious souvenirs of a discredited Empire".<ref>Faris, p. 219</ref> Obituarists in other countries similarly took it for granted that the comic operas, including {{lang|fr|Orphée}}, were ephemeral and would be forgotten.<ref name=times>Obituary, ''The Times'', 6 October 1880, p. 3</ref><ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C02E5DC153FEE3ABC4E53DFB667838B699FDE&scp=2&sq=Offenbach&st=p "Jacques Offenbach dead – The end of the great composer of opera bouffe"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305032440/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9C02E5DC153FEE3ABC4E53DFB667838B699FDE&scp=2&sq=Offenbach&st=p |date=5 March 2016}}  ''The New York Times'', 6 October 1880</ref> By the time of the composer's centenary, in 1919, it had been clear for some years that such predictions had been wrong.<ref>Hauger, George. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/961146 "Offenbach: English Obituaries and Realities"], ''The Musical Times'', October 1980, pp. 619–621 {{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306182959/http://www.jstor.org/stable/961146 |date=6 March 2016}}</ref> {{lang|fr|Orphée}} was frequently revived,<ref>Noël and Stoullig (1888), p. 287 and (1890), p. 385; Stoullig, p. 225; and
[https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5354235/f3.item.r=Guy%20Jupiter%20Offenbach.zoom "Courrier des Spectacles"], ''Le Gaulois: littéraire et politique'', 10 May 1912, p. 1 (all in French)</ref> as were several more of his operas,<ref>Gänzl and Lamb, pp. 286, 296, 300 and 306</ref> and criticisms on moral or musical grounds had largely ceased. Gabriel Groviez wrote in ''[[The Musical Quarterly]]'':

{{blockquote|The libretto of {{lang|fr|Orphée}} overflows with spirit and humour and the score is full of sparkling wit and melodious charm. It is impossible to analyse adequately a piece wherein the sublimest idiocy and the most astonishing fancy clash at every turn.{{nbsp}}[...] Offenbach never produced a more complete work.<ref>Grovlez, Gabriel. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/738195 "Jacques Offenbach: A Centennial Sketch"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160809012324/http://www.jstor.org/stable/738195 |date=9 August 2016}}, ''The Musical Quarterly'', July 1919, pp. 329–337</ref>}}

Among modern critics, Traubner describes {{lang|fr|Orphée}} as "the first great full-length classical French operetta{{nbsp}}[...] classical (in both senses of the term)", although he regards the 1874 revision as "overblown".<ref name=traubner>Traubner (1997), pp. 267–268</ref> [[Peter Gammond]] writes that the public appreciated the frivolity of the work while recognising that it is rooted in the best traditions of opéra comique.<ref>Gammond, pp. 55–56</ref> Among 21st-century writers [[Bernard Holland]] has commented that the music is "beautifully made, relentlessly cheerful, reluctantly serious", but does not show as the later ''[[Tales of Hoffmann]]'' does "what a profoundly gifted composer Offenbach really was";<ref>Holland, Bernard. [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/18/arts/music/18juil.html "A U.P.S. Man Joins Offenbach’s Gods and Goddesses"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190423164342/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/18/arts/music/18juil.html |date=23 April 2019 }}, ''The New York Times'', 18 November 2006, p. B14</ref> [[Andrew Lamb (writer)|Andrew Lamb]] has commented that although {{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}} has remained Offenbach's best-known work, "a consensus as to the best of his operettas would probably prefer {{lang|fr|[[La Vie parisienne (operetta)|La vie parisienne]]}} for its sparkle, {{lang|fr|[[La Périchole]]}} for its charm and {{lang|fr|[[La belle Hélène]]}} for its all-round brilliance".<ref>Lamb, Andrew. [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000020271  "Offenbach, Jacques"], ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, 2001. Retrieved 26 April 2019. {{subscription required}} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190401230954/http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000020271 |date=1 April 2019 }}</ref> [[Kurt Gänzl]] writes in ''The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre'' that compared with earlier efforts, {{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}} was "something on a different scale{{nbsp}}[...] a gloriously imaginative parody of classic mythology and of modern events decorated with Offenbach's most laughing bouffe music."<ref>Gänzl, p. 1514</ref> In a 2014 study of parody and burlesque in {{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}}, Hadlock writes:

{{blockquote|With {{lang|fr|Orphée aux enfers}}, the genre we now know as operetta gathered its forces and leapt forward, while still retaining the quick, concise style of its one-act predecessors, their absurdist and risqué sensibility, and their economy in creating maximum comic impact with limited resources. At the same time, it reflects Offenbach's desire to establish himself and his company as legitimate heirs of the eighteenth-century French comic tradition of [[François-André Danican Philidor|Philidor]] and [[André Grétry|Grétry]].<ref>Hadlock, p. 162</ref>}}